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Avg 7.5 & 8 Users Important Warning.

Conor_3
Conor_3 Posts: 6,944 Forumite
in Techie Stuff
From the "You get what you pay for" department....

Yesterday AVG released an update which marks user32.dll as a virus. This is a critical system file for Windows to run and if deleted, results in an unusable system that won't start or goes into a continuous reboot cycle. The file needs to be restored through the Windows Recovery Console for those of you lucky enough to have an installation CD.

More here:
http://securityandthe.net/2008/11/10/avg-virus-scanner-removes-critical-windows-file/
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Comments

  • aliEnRIK
    aliEnRIK Posts: 17,741 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Jesus!

    What the hell are they playing at!
    :idea:
  • tomsolomon
    tomsolomon Posts: 3,613 Forumite
    I've said it before and I will say it again.
    You can't go far wrong with Avira anti-virus. I have used many of these programs and Avira has detected malware the others just cannot find.
    Forget your AVG's, McAfee's an Norton's, and give it a try.

    As it is Avira stands head and shoulder above. Although I may do my personal review of the free programs in a year or two, I will be using Avira for the foreseeable future......
    To travel at the speed of light, one must first become light.....
  • aliEnRIK
    aliEnRIK Posts: 17,741 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Yeah, ive recently changed from AVG to Avira
    Avira it would seem, does have the best updates.
    :idea:
  • Mike_J
    Mike_J Posts: 998 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    I assume its only a problem if AVG actually deletes the file concerned during a virus scan!
  • espresso
    espresso Posts: 16,448 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Mike_J wrote: »
    I assume its only a problem if AVG actually deletes the file concerned during a virus scan!

    Yes and if you have now updated the definition file to 270.9.0/1778 or higher, the false positive has been removed.
    :doh: Blue text on this forum usually signifies hyperlinks, so click on them!..:wall:
  • Conor_3
    Conor_3 Posts: 6,944 Forumite
    tomsolomon wrote: »
    As it is Avira stands head and shoulder above. Although I may do my personal review of the free programs in a year or two, I will be using Avira for the foreseeable future......

    Avira is best for the free ones but doesn't stack up against NOD32.
  • isofa
    isofa Posts: 6,091 Forumite
    Does Avira scan e-mails live (i.e. in Outlook etc) when they arrive, I'm sure that was an issue with older versions?
  • espresso
    espresso Posts: 16,448 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    isofa wrote: »
    Does Avira scan e-mails live (i.e. in Outlook etc) when they arrive, I'm sure that was an issue with older versions?

    Good point, see comparisons of the Avira products here.
    :doh: Blue text on this forum usually signifies hyperlinks, so click on them!..:wall:
  • esuhl
    esuhl Posts: 9,409 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    isofa wrote: »
    Does Avira scan e-mails live (i.e. in Outlook etc) when they arrive, I'm sure that was an issue with older versions?

    No it doesn't (well, the free version doesn't) - that's the only reason I installed AVG for my mum. On my own PC I have a plain text email client where HTML files show as attachments (which I can then view in Firefox with NoScript enabled so no dodgy scripts run by default). I manually scan other attachments myself (not that I receive many), so AntiVir suits me just fine.

    When I looked at various independent reviews at the start of the year, AntiVir was marginally better than AVG or Avast at detecting "in the wild" viruses.
  • espresso
    espresso Posts: 16,448 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    esuhl wrote: »
    When I looked at various independent reviews at the start of the year, AntiVir was marginally better than AVG or Avast at detecting "in the wild" viruses.

    Although it also seems to 'find' more false positives, which can be a nuisance!
    :doh: Blue text on this forum usually signifies hyperlinks, so click on them!..:wall:
This discussion has been closed.
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